Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (10 page)

I will speak frankly, gentlemen. This made me deeply concerned. All the best people were saying: ‘Verres will escape your clutches—but we will no longer be in charge of the courts. For once Verres has been acquitted, who will be able to stop the transfer of the courts?’
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[21] Everyone was dismayed; and it was not the sudden joy of this criminal that upset them so much as the unheard-of congratulations uttered by so distinguished a personage. I wanted to hide the fact that I too was dismayed; I wanted to conceal my anguish by looking unconcerned and cover it up by saying nothing.

Then a few days later, when the praetors-elect were drawing lots
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and Marcus Metellus
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obtained the presidency of the extortion court, I was suddenly informed that Verres had been warmly congratulated on this and had actually sent some slaves back to his house to tell his wife the good news. [22] Naturally, I was not very pleased at this; but I did not think that Metellus’ gaining the extortion court was anything for me to worry about particularly. But one thing I did discover, from certain individuals who kept me informed of everything, was that a number of chests filled with money from Sicily had been conveyed by a certain senator to a Roman equestrian;
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that out of the original number, about ten chests had been kept back at the senator’s house and earmarked for use at my election;
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and that bribery-agents for all the tribes had been summoned to Verres’ house at night. [23] One of these agents, a man who considered himself duty-bound to help me in any way he could, came to see me that very night and
told me what Verres had said to them. He had reminded them how generously he had treated them in the past, both when he had been standing for the praetorship
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and at the recent consular and praetorian elections; then he had immediately promised them as much money as they wanted in return for blocking my election to the aedileship. At this some replied that they dared not try it, others that they did not think it could be done. However, they managed to find a trusty friend of his from the same clan, Quintus Verres of the Romilian tribe,
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a bribery-agent of the old school, a pupil and friend of Verres’ father, who promised that he would see the job done for half a million sesterces down; and some of the others then said that they would join him. In view of this, my friend kindly advised me to take every possible precaution.

[24] So I had to face a number of extremely worrying problems all within a narrow space of time. My election was imminent, and here I had an enormous sum of money fighting against me. The trial was also coming up, and in this matter too those chests from Sicily were threatening me. Fear about the election prevented me from making the necessary preparations for the trial; and because of the trial it was impossible for me to concentrate on my candidature. Furthermore, there was no point in my threatening the bribery-agents, because I could see that they were well aware that I would be completely preoccupied and tied down by the present trial.
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[25] It was at this moment that I heard for the first time how Hortensius had summoned the Sicilians to attend at his home; and how they, realizing why they had been sent for, showed themselves to be free agents and stayed away. The election, meanwhile, began to take place. Verres thought that he was lord and master of it, as of all the other elections this year. Accompanied by his suave and ingratiating son, this great potentate rushed from tribe to tribe, canvassing and meeting with all his family friends—that is, with the bribery-agents. But the Roman people, once they had noticed and understood what was going on, ensured most wholeheartedly
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that the man whose riches had not succeeded in diverting me from my duty was similarly unsuccessful in using money to dislodge me from my office.

[26] Released from my considerable anxiety about the election, I began, my mind now much more free and at ease, to devote all my thoughts and actions exclusively to the trial. And I discovered, members of the jury, that the plan which my opponents had formed
and set in motion was this: to spin out the proceedings by whatever means necessary so that the case might then be heard before Marcus Metellus as praetor. There were several advantages to this. First, Marcus Metellus himself would be on their side. Secondly, not only would Hortensius be consul, but Quintus Metellus
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too, and I ask you to take note of how good a friend he is to Verres: for he has given him such a preliminary vote of confidence that he seems already to have repaid Verres for delivering to him the preliminary votes at his election.
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[27] So did you expect me to say nothing about such important matters? At such a critical moment for the country and for my own reputation, did you suppose I would have a thought for anything except my duty and my own position? The second consul-elect
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summoned the Sicilians; some of them came, mindful of the fact that Lucius Metellus
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was governor of Sicily. He then spoke to them as follows: ‘I am consul. One of my brothers is governor of Sicily; the other is about to become president of the extortion court. We have gone to great lengths to make sure that Verres comes to no harm.’
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[28] I ask you, Metellus: intimidating witnesses, particularly ruined and fearful Sicilians, and not just with your own authority but with the fear inspired by the position of consul and the power of two praetors
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—if this is not judicial corruption, then could you please tell me what is? What would you not do for someone who was innocent and a relative of yours, seeing that you abandon your duty and the dignity of your position for a criminal who is unrelated to you, and lead those who do not know you to conclude that what he keeps saying about you is true? [29] For I am told that Verres says that you were made consul not by fate,
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like the other members of your family, but by his own efforts.

So he will have two consuls and the president of the court on his side.
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‘And,’ he says, ‘we won’t merely escape a president of the court who is too conscientious by far, and far too protective of his good reputation—Manius Glabrio.
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No, we will have this other advantage too: Marcus Caesonius is currently a member of the jury, the colleague of our prosecutor,
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a man who has already been tried and tested as a juror, and someone we certainly don’t want in a court that we are in any way trying to corrupt. Before, when he was a juror in Junius’ court,
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he didn’t just disapprove of the terrible corruption that took place, he actually exposed it. So after 1 January, we won’t
have him in the jury. [30] And as for Quintus Manlius and Quintus Cornificius,
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two strict and incorruptible jurors, they will both be tribunes of the plebs, and so we won’t have them on the jury either. Publius Sulpicius,
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another severe and incorruptible juror, will have to take up his post on 5 December. Marcus Crepereius, who comes from a strict and traditional equestrian family, Lucius Cassius, whose family is rigorous in everything and particularly in jury service, and Gnaeus Tremellius,
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who is extremely conscientious and scrupulous—these three men of the old school have all been elected military tribunes, and so from 1 January will not be on the jury. And we shall also be having a supplementary ballot to fill Marcus Metellus’ place,
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since he is becoming president of this court. After 1 January, then, both the presiding magistrate and virtually the entire jury will have changed.
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This will allow us to escape the serious threats of the prosecutor and the great expectations that there are regarding the outcome, and to arrange things exactly as we choose.’

[31] Today is 5 August, and you did not convene until 4 p.m.: they think that today does not even count. There are ten days to go before Gnaeus Pompeius holds the Votive Games;
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these will take up fifteen days. The Roman Games then follow immediately. This means that there will be an interval of nearly forty days before they reckon they need to reply to what I am going to say. Then they think that by making speeches and obtaining adjournments they can easily spin the trial out until the Games of Victory, after which the Plebeian Games immediately follow; and after that there will be either no or very few days on which legal business can take place. By this time the prosecution will have gone off the boil and run out of steam, and the whole case will then come up before the new president of the court, Marcus Metellus. As regards this gentleman, if I had had any doubts about his honesty, I would have included him among the jurors I rejected.
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[32] Now, however, my feeling is that I would rather see the trial out with him as a juror than as president of the court, and I would rather trust him on oath and with his own voting-tablet than not on oath and with the voting-tablets of the others.

Now, gentlemen, I should like to ask you what you think I should do. But I am sure that without even speaking you will advise me to take the course I realize I must follow. If I devote the time to which I am entitled to making a speech, I will certainly reap the fruits of my effort, industry, and conscientiousness, and through my prosecution
I will ensure that no one in the whole of history ever came to court more ready, more vigilant, or better prepared. But amidst all the praise I will receive for my hard work, there is a real danger that the defendant will slip away. So what can be done? The answer is not, I think, obscure or hard to find. [33] The fruits of glory that could be reaped from a full-scale speech, these I must keep back for some other time; for the present I must prosecute the defendant instead with account books, witnesses, and public and private certified documents and evidence.

The whole business, Hortensius, will be between you and me. Let me speak frankly. If I thought that you were genuinely competing with me in speaking and in explaining away the charges in this trial, I would accordingly devote my efforts to making a prosecution speech and detailing the charges. But since you have begun to fight against me in a way that is determined not by your own character but by Verres’ desperate situation, it is necessary for me to find some means of countering the sort of tactics you have adopted. [34] Your plan is to begin your answer to me only after the first two sets of games; mine is to reach the adjournment before the first set of games begins. The result will be that your strategy will be admired as a clever tactic, whereas mine will be thought of simply as the necessary response to it.

But as to what I had begun to say, that the business would be between you and me, what I meant was this. When I took on this case at the request of the Sicilians, I thought it a considerable credit to myself that the people who had previously put my innocence and self-restraint to the test
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should now wish to put my integrity and conscientiousness to the test also. Yet once I had taken the case on, I decided to adopt a more ambitious aim, one which would allow the Roman people to witness my devotion to our country. [35] To prosecute a man already convicted by universal public opinion hardly seemed to me a task worth all the effort I would have to spend on it—were it not for the fact that that intolerable arrogance of yours and the greed that you have displayed in various trials of recent years are now being brought into play once again in defence of such an utterly worthless person. So now, since you take so much pleasure in your tyrannical domination of the courts, and since there exist men who are neither ashamed nor tired of their own selfish and scandalous behaviour, who seem almost deliberately to incur the hatred and
detestation of the Roman people, I therefore declare that I have taken on a task which, though it may be a difficult and dangerous one for me personally, is nevertheless one which is fully worthy of my devoting to it all my youthful energy
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and effort.

[36] Since our entire order
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is being oppressed by the wickedness and criminality of a few individuals and is tainted by the bad reputation of the courts, I declare to men of this type that I intend to be their hated prosecutor and their hateful, unrelenting, and bitter adversary. I am going to take on this role, indeed I claim this role, which I shall fulfil in my magistracy, which I shall fulfil in that place
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from which the Roman people have asked me, from 1 January, to collaborate with them over our national affairs and over the criminal elements. I promise the Roman people that this will be the grandest and the most impressive spectacle of my aedileship.
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Let me advise, warn, and give notice:
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those who deposit bribes or accept them or guarantee them or promise them or act as intermediaries or as agents for corrupting a court, and those who have volunteered their power or their effrontery for this purpose, all such persons must, in the present trial, keep their hands and their minds free from this heinous crime. [37] Hortensius will then be consul, with a consul’s power and authority, whereas I will be aedile—that is to say, little more than an ordinary citizen. Yet the action which I am promising to take is so welcome and so agreeable to the Roman people that, on this issue, the consul himself will appear, compared to me, less even (if such a thing were possible) than an ordinary citizen.

I am not only going to touch upon, but (after revealing certain information) will actually discuss in detail all the wicked and disgraceful crimes which have been committed in connection with the courts over the ten years
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since they were transferred to the senate. [38] I will tell the Roman people how it is that, when juries consisted of equestrians, there was for nearly fifty years
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not even the least suspicion of a juror ever having accepted a bribe in return for giving a particular verdict; how it is that, once the courts had been transferred to the senatorial order and the Roman people’s control over each one of you had been removed, it was possible for Quintus Calidius
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to declare on his conviction that no ex-praetor could be convicted honourably for less than three million sesterces; and how it is that, when the senator Publius Septimius
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was convicted, at the time when Quintus Hortensius was the praetor in charge of the
extortion court, the damages that were assessed explicitly took account of the fact that Septimius had accepted a bribe in a previous case. [39] Again, at the trials of Gaius Herennius and Gaius Popillius,
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two senators who were convicted of embezzlement, and at that of Marcus Atilius
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who was convicted of treason, it was established that they had all accepted bribes in previous cases; when Gaius Verres was drawing lots as city praetor,
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senators were produced who, chosen by the lot, convicted a defendant without holding a proper trial; and a senator was found
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who, while serving as a juror in one and the same court, both took money from a defendant to distribute among the other jurors and at the same time took money from the prosecutor to find the defendant guilty. [40] And now, what words can I use to deplore that shame, disgrace, and catastrophe for the whole senatorial order, the fact that in this country of ours, while senators supplied the juries, the voting-tablets of jurors under oath were marked with symbols of different colours?
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I give you my promise that I will go over all these crimes rigorously and in detail.